Want to be rich? Change this one bad habit

It's pretty simple. You gotta stop thinking short term. Because true wealth is created over the course of years or decades - not days, weeks or months.

Let's face it... You plan to be alive on this beautiful planet for 100 years. I mean that will become realistic as technology increases life expectancy, particularly in the western world. So stop selling yourself short, looking for what you can realize in money for the next day, week or month. You will need money in two, five or ten years as well. So how about starting a plan to create wealth then.

There's a really great phrase that I love to hear in the financial independence community - DELAYED GRATIFICATION. It is the key to wealth for most FI followers, and yet it is something that requires self discipline and faith. You have to find a mindset where you don't focus all your attention on getting money for the immediate time period, as the wealth that you create for the long term - particularly with passive income, will create an entirely different dynamic that will change your world for the future.

Here's the biggest problem that most poor people face - they need money NOW. They have bills - rent, car loans, food, Internet bills, phone bills, credit card debt, etc. I constantly hear things like, "It's easy for you say that, but I gotta pay the bills this month", or "Yeh, great idea but I first gotta get out from under my debts". OK, let's break this down and with the wisdom of hindsight, let's actually learn from this.

Poor = Repeating the same bad behavior that got you in this mess

Let's pretend we live in a place where you can begin your financial life unencumbered. You have no debt, no bills, and you are looking for your first job. Maybe you live at home with your parents, or your bills are covered in some fashion.

You might think you need to impress your friends and buy some expensive car to show off. You are, after all, looking to establish your identity and a Lambo would do a really good job at that. But you are selling your future self short and creating a bad habit that will destroy your future self. Because the short term fix you get from that retail spending is fun for a few minutes, hours or maybe days. After that, it wears off like a sugar high and you are out looking for the next fix. Each time the banksters are tempting you, like a cheap drug dealer, that you can have their money if you are only willing to sign up for that credit card, or store credit, or cheap car loan. I mean "Pay nothing now" sounds really attractive.

But it isn't. We all know that. When the bill comes due, you have to earn. That means you have to sell your time to someone to get money. That time is finite. Not only is the amount of time you have finite, but more importantly your focus is turned to someone else's dream that makes someone else rich, and you don't have the mental energy or focus to make yourself rich.

Most important thing you have to know - a Salary is NOT RICH. I don't care how big it is. If you are enslaved to an employer for a salary you are not rich. If you can't meet me right now at a coffee shop for a chat that might change your life because "My boss won't let me leave work", then you are poor. Period. If you can't survive being without your job for 3 months, you are poor. Your lack of freedom and inability to take advantage of an opportunity right now means you are not and probably won't ever be wealthy. Maybe you will find a slither of time and be lucky to be in the right place to get an opportunity, but if you don't have freedom of time & thought, you are poor.

99% of all investors (crypto investors particularly) are not really investors. They are quick buck addicts that are looking to get some immediate gain. You see this on all the posts here in Steemit. Everyone wants to talk about how Crypto is UP or DOWN today. Or where will it be next week? Or should I buy or should I sell? OMG. This is what casino gambling addicts say. Stop it. You are not going to be wealthy if you follow some day trader's charts on this. The fact is that if you buy anything with the goal of it increasing in value, you have to focus on what it will be worth in 5 years. Not in 5 days, weeks or months. Because real wealth takes time. Like a good wine.

How do I get through 5 years? I need the money NOW!

If you have to ask this question, unfortunately you are poor. Stop for a second and let's see how you got here. You need money now because you made some decisions in life that turned out to be long term expensive. You bought something with someone else's money that you couldn't afford. If you didn't do this, then you wouldn't have this problem. Did you need to move out of your parents house that early to find your identity and sacrificed your long term wealth prospects? Did you choose to live by yourself rather than share a room in a house with a bunch of others because it was a smart decision, or was it because you wanted your own space? That all comes at a cost. A cost that makes you poor.

Start with the root cause of your poverty - sell the crap you don't need and pay off debt. EBay is really easy to do this. So are garage sales, etc. Whatever works in your region, but lose the stuff and get the cash. Then lose the debt.

If you have any time you can devote to this, get a 2nd job or start to sidehustle to make money. Not something that requires you go buy a crap ton of things before you can make a buck. Sell your time. Mow lawns, drive for Uber, whatever it takes. Then stash that additional income and pay down debts immediately. Do the Dave Ramsey thing here and get yourself out of harm's way.

I mention Dave Ramsey only that he provides a method to steady the ship, but he doesn't provide a method to chart a future course towards paradise. That is still up to you. But it is a hell of a lot easier to make that journey happen if your ship isn't weighed down by tons of debt and could capsize at any moment. You need to become a speed boat here, and not a massive container ship on the journey to wealth.

Once your debt load has been reduced, you will have more cash available for day to day bills. The interest payments alone should net you hundreds per month. Then start to look at every expense you have, and question whether you really need it. Do you need that cell phone plan? Could you find something cheaper? Do you need to be living in your home or should you downsize? Do you need to be living in the city where you are, or would moving to a cheaper region make more sense? Is there a complete ROI on your job that you can make that looks not at how much you make, but more importantly how much you keep after all your expenses are paid? If you focus on this from a bottom up approach, you will see that your six figure income might be pennies of net profit after all the expenses are paid for being there to support your job (read that as "support your employer" because they are making money here - you are not). You might think you are doing fine, but unless you have the freedom of time, you are poor. Sorry to break the news, but it is fact.

How long term thinking can generate substantial wealth

I bought BTC back in 2011. I had some money lying around that I didn't care if I lost. Why? Because despite the 2008 market crash, I was in a position where I didn't extend myself financially into dangerous territory. For that reason, when everyone else lost their homes to foreclosures, I bought foreclosure properties at 20c on the dollar. Properties I bought back then are now worth 5x what I spent on them. Why? Because I controlled debt.

Putting $1K into BTC in 2011 was not a huge risk to me. But that bought a ton of BTC. BTC that I just put into a hardware wallet, deposited in my bank safety deposit box and forgot about it. I choose to buy in then because I believed in the promise of this being a better way to pay people across borders than Western Union, etc. who were extorting high fees. I saw this as the "people's money" and I believed in the ideology. But I never bought this to sell immediately. It is a long term play.

But I'm not a fool. When the market showed signs of being stupid (the final evidence I needed was the John Oliver Comedy sketch about Bitcoin, that you can watch here: https://bit.ly/2IjMaE5) and people demonstrated the human faults of greed and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), I knew it was time to exit from the investment. So after a gradual weening off of BTC in 2017, close to the highs, through to the early 2018s I sold my BTC. Wrote a big check to Uncle Sam and then put the money into real estate. Why? Because people have to have a roof over their heads, despite whether the economy is up or down. They still have to pay rent. They still need a home.

Long term wins. It's all about timing. My blog article on Learning to Surf is probably the best example of what you have to learn to be wealthy https://steemit.com/money/@k0d3g3ar/forget-education-learn-to-surf

It wasn't always like that for me

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I wasn't like this. I wanted the Lambos. I wanted to travel. I wanted to own expensive things. I started businesses in economic climates that were harsh and although I managed to get through the process, it was really hard. But I was my own worst enemy in that I would spend money before I had it in hand. I needed debt to fund my future self, at the expense of my future self. It doesn't take long before all you are doing is working to pay that debt obligation.

In the 1980s, I lived in the "Greed is Good" mantra and it got us nowhere. Cars wither and die. Debt lives on. Houses need constant maintenance and mortgages need to be paid. When you find yourself at a time when an opportunity comes along (for me it was to move to the USA), I had to lose EVERYTHING I owned to do it and yet I couldn't escape the debt. I fire-sold everything I had and what few items left I put on a ship and had sent over. I had nothing, and yet I was the happiest I had ever been. There was a future, and I felt like a snake that had shed my skin. Starting fresh again.

I've done that a couple of times in my life. But I've learned that you can't drag a family through that. You have to be a solid and reliable custodian of your family and that changed me. As a result, looking in the rear view mirror I can see that slowing down, focusing on a future you and your family provides the most solid framework needed to move forward and now the opportunities are out there, and I am in the best position in my life to take advantage of them. I don't have a boss yelling at me to get the report done by 5PM. Or deadlines that are just stupid because someone else wants to impress either themselves, their clients or their boss, at the expense of everyone else. Or being a part of some politic that only serves the few for some power gain. Nope. Not for me. I opted out. And I'm way happier for doing it.

And wealthier. Buying real estate or crypto currencies isn't something that your boss tells you to do. You do that. You make those decisions. However if you have sold your soul to debt enslavement, then good luck. You will be forever chasing your tail and never being ahead of the wave. Your distractions will blur the reality of opportunity and you won't have any buffer to allow you to fail and learn in the process either. In effect, the downward spiral takes hold and that's it. Game over.

So be a frugal, long term thinker and become wealthy

This stuff is actually a lot of fun. One of the most positive things I've found over the past few years is the FI (Financial Independence community). The best cheerleaders for this is the ChooseFI podcast (http://www.choosefi.com), and the teachings of Mr. Money Moustache (http://www.mrmoneymoustache.com). If you can find an hour away from your screaming boss, invest it in researching this material. Doesn't cost any money and you might start to get motivated of how to get out of the "rat race" and join a community of like minded people that want independence, security and wealth. But are truly long term thinkers.